The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 29 - How To Fearlessly Pursue Your Dreams: Ben Williams

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. We’ve all got dreams, yet not everyone is willing to pursue them. So what does it actually take in order to achieve the life of our dreams? I put this question to Ben Williams, former Royal Marine, to find out how he found his purpose and turned his life around. Episode 68 - https://g2ul0.app.link/jhWxHvDnHkb Ben: https://www.instagram.com/ben_williams_cm/ Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/StevenBartlettYT?sub_confirmation=1 The Diary Of A CEO live - Sign up here - https://g2ul0.app.link/diaryofaceolive

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue i've got a very good friend of mine who I know won't mind me saying this because we talk about it openly um who is going through tough times at the moment he sounds very very similar to the guy that you described who was having those negative thoughts and was looking for purpose in life and I'm almost searching for the advice to give him I think that's why I'm asking you the question because he is that guy that sat in his car looking up at the sky wondering what's the point in living what is it that takes you from that place to

putting the shorts on and saying do you know what i'm going to do something for me for once i'm going to help myself no one else is going to get me out of this situation but me that bit there feels like the hardest mountain to climb uh i guess for you it was that sense of purpose and prestige and that was you know this had been your childhood dream or like there's also this quote i sometimes ponder on which is change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change like when life becomes sucks so much that it would be it would suck less to to go and be beasted yeah yeah you've got to want something that's what i looking back having learned everything along the way it was the desire to want something what is it i want um and it wasn't the validation of being a tough guy at all it was to be part of my dream you know

and you think back to that nine-year-old he'd almost made his mind up on the spot there that he's going to join the marines and that kind of got taken away and then i took it away from myself anyway um and i think almost further away it gets it becomes less tangible so when the incident of nightclub happens and you find yourself becoming wrapped around the wrong axle completely i think it's getting further away i'm losing control i haven't got it i'm losing that thing i want to that that finally that day of something that reminds you to go remember what you want to go fuck it i'm gonna go and do it and you know what i found i know a lot of people

like this i still have a few of them my close friendship group um and i've worked with a lot of people like this as well where it's actually the courage to go and do it somewhere in your friend's head he'll be thinking something that i want to he may look at you yeah but you're successful it's easy for you to say it look how well you're living the dream fuck you you can't give me advice and you're like oh dude come on switch on in there somewhere is something he wants in there somewhere is a desire in there is a child who had an ambition for doing something and the older we get what i found with my experience it it feels like it gets slightly further away and that gap gets bigger and all of a sudden you've got to take

a bigger step or a bigger leap if you have that ability to go no i do have the courage with it that that gap closes and it takes steps it takes baby steps and people think it's overnight you know you may have found this oh you're an success. That's like 10 years worth of hard work. Lionel Messi says it took 15 years to become an overnight success. That's because deep down in the shadows, those people which are fighting every day, the addiction, the difficulty,

the desire to go out on the piss with our friends in the normal world, to do the drugs, to eat unhealthy food, whatever it is, is that fight right there to go yes or no should i follow the easy option or should i follow the hard option and sometimes the hard option isn't the challenge sometimes the hard option is the courage you have to build within yourself to take the steps you know that um is there anything that i could have said to you when you were in that point in your life when you were doing the drugs and having suicidal ideation if i was your friend is there anything that i could have said to you when you were in that point in your life, when you were doing the drugs and having suicidal ideation? If I was your friend,

is there anything that I could have said to you that would have helped you get out of it? Because as friends and family members, we're always trying to change, you know, help, right? And I sometimes doubt the power of a mate turning to you and being like, pull your shit together you know it strangely happened to me so uh i won't mention his name because he's doing sneaky beaky things these days but there's a close friend of mine sorry what's sneaky beaky you know appearing from curtains working for special forces and doing things like that right not perfect no no no no no yeah can't do that one again no he's not perfect um that's why i won't mention his name uh a friend of mine was within this lifestyle i was with him and um he decided to join the marines

and he got out of what we were embroiled in and i remember bringing him, what's it like? What's it like? You know, sort of inquisitive about it. And he just said, come and do it. And for me, that was like this guiding light. It was someone within my life who actually had come away from what we'd all been doing and plucked up the courage to go and do it. And it wasn't some millionaire entrepreneur. It wasn't my mum. It wasn't my dad.

It wasn't a really senior Marine. It was a friend who was probably about 15 weeks ahead of me on the process, who's not even made it himself and is still going through the hardest parts of training to say, come and do it. Come and give it a go. You've got this. And that was almost that, not validation,

but that boost to be like, yeah, all right. Because that's a relatable role model. Yeah. He's just like you. Yeah. It's someone I know, but it's so real. It's so, hang on, he was with us 15 weeks ago. I know him.

I ring him and I'm like, wow, okay, I'm going to follow in your wake. Which in turn becomes quite intimidating because you're sort of social groups looking at it going, well, the Marines is really hard to get in now two of them are there one of them's guaranteed to fail aren't they shortly and i'm looking at him going oh he's stronger and tougher than i am is it me and that sort of creeps in every now and then but it was that role model to have so i was as you were saying that i was thinking that people will now look at you after being in the marines for you know almost 10 years 10 years 10 years they'll see that that marine a decade in they'll see ben and they'll think oh god i can't i can't do that he's you know like he's big strong man

he's disciplined he's got this mindset like there'll be a kid sat in his bedroom glancing at that youtube video of the you know the marines advert thing and then looking over at ben and thinking oh no i'm not i'm not, I'm not Ben. He's all polished. And it's funny that it sometimes takes a relatable role model to be the bridge where you go, do you know what? There's a guy that's halfway through the journey who I know, and I'm like him and he's not special or smart or whatever or rich. And that can, that's the bridge that I'm going to use to get in there myself. It's one of the things when I do the podcast and when I talk about my story, I always want to let people know that the guy you see now that can talk and that can do this business stuff and no social media was like an idiot who like got kicked out

of school, can't spell still, can't do maths. Well, it's just like you. But as you say, maybe the defining thing was courage. And that courage came from just a delusional belief that i could this is what i talk this is why i wanted to write my book commando mindset because i wanted to um get people thinking that a commando mindset is a particular way of thinking within our world you know to have a hundred percent of the commando mindset you have to become a commando you have to go through a process and join up um but everyone has to get themselves to the gate and i become quite interested in the getting to the gate part to start and who doesn't get to the gate you know the biggest critics never stand on the start line

with you they're always the ones in the stand giving it the big one aren't they it's those on the start line who get to the gate now i got to the gate and i was really proud of getting to the gate you know how cringe worthy but potential royal marines commando yes at least i'm a potential royal marines commando instead of a potential civilian which i don't want to be for now i want to go and live and and uh enjoy the world in different parts of it um some you wouldn't go to holiday on but um i wanted to go and see it and that that for me was a really interesting point and you know fast forward many years later i managed to get the prestigious job of going back to the command and training center as an instructor and get to see those people get to the start line and see them go on their journey and listen to

their stories you know you're a bit of a tough guy over them at times but listen to their stories and hear them say that they had drug problems and this happened within their family and or this person lived on the street for this long but now you're in my world and i'm going to try and take you from what you were and turn you into something that we need you to be but you have the ability to be as well and that process seeing them go from civilian to commando and that's really empowering because I get to stand there on the last day of training when they finally do it and you can finally call a mate when, you know, it's a bit hard up to that point

where it's like, good effort, mate. And you have a beer with them and you tell them a little bit about your story. They go, whoa, I thought you were like

this sort of thing. Yeah, untouchable dickhead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. But instead they realise you're a human.